Corpse-scented konjac is the evil spirit of protecting King Solomon's treasure in the legend of rare and endangered plants in the world.

Corpse-scented konjac (Titan konjac flower)

Corpse-scented konjac is a perennial herb of Araceae, also known as "corpse flower", giant konjac, it also has a more vivid name "corpse smelly konjac". Corpse-scented konjac is native to Sumatra and is a rare and endangered plant in the world. It is very rare to bloom under artificial cultivation.

Morphological characteristics

Troll taro has underground tubers that blossom first and then grow leaves. The huge inflorescence grows directly from the tuber, and on the short and thick inflorescence stalk, there is a broad bract similar to the petal, which is called the flame bract, which is folded on the side and is trumpet-shaped, bright in color, more than 1 meter high, and the upper mouth diameter often reaches 1.5 meters; the hollow fleshy inflorescence axis stands in the center of the huge flame bud, like a huge candle inserted on a candlestick. Inflorescences grow rapidly and can grow about 10 centimeters a day, which makes some "click" noise in the process of rapid growth. Inflorescence nearly 3 m high. Male flowers and female flowers grow on the same inflorescence, female flowers will blossom first, after one or two days, male flowers will bloom. Female and male flowers of the same plant do not bloom together at the same time in order to prevent self-pollination. The whole inflorescence gives off a carrion-like smell, which attracts carrion-eating beetles and fleshy flies to pollinate it.

Botanists found that the average konjac blossoms only once every seven years, and each time it blossoms for a short time, only about two or three days.

Once pollination is completed, the tall inflorescence axis and giant bud of Amorphophallus will collapse and begin to rot. When the bright red fruit is ripe, the inflorescence axis and bud are completely rotten. Ripe bright fruits are swallowed by birds and spread through their faeces.

Not only the inflorescence of Amorphophallus Konjac is huge, but the leaves are also huge. Giant konjac does not blossom every year. In non-flowering years, only one leaf grows on the tuber each year. This leaf is very large, can grow up to 6 meters high and 5 meters wide, the petiole is green and looks like a tree trunk, the top of the petiole has several branches, each branch has many leaflets, and one leaf looks like a "tree".

When the growing season is over and the underground tubers store enough energy, the old leaves will wither and the tubers will go into dormancy for about four months.

Amorphophallus Amorphophallus is a rare and endangered plant in the world, and it is very rare to bloom under the condition of artificial cultivation.

Distribution range

It is native to Sumatra. Asian tropical rain forests are distributed. Some botanical gardens have been cultivated artificially.

Related legends

And its distant ancestor, "corpse fragrance konjac", has long been extinct for a thousand years. This devil flower, with its flirtatious color and strange fragrance, has created one trap after another made up of illusions, luring people to death. According to legend, the "corpse fragrance konjac flower" is the evil spirit guarding King Solomon's treasure.

Cultivation record

The wild konjac grows only in the tropical rain forest of Sumatra, Indonesia. The first scientist to discover the plant was the Italian botanist Odo Aldo Bekali (Odoardo Beccari), who first saw it in Sumatra in 1878. Amorphophallus konjac does not blossom very often in the wild, but the individuals who will bloom in the artificial cultivation environment are even more rare. In 1889, the giant flower konjac cultivated in the Kew Royal Botanical Gardens in London, England, blossomed for the first time, which was the first record of artificial flowering. Since then, about 60 times of flowering have been recorded. The giant flower konjac cultivated in the New York Botanical Garden blossomed in 1937 and 1939 respectively. This is the earliest record of flowering in the United States. Nowadays, the number of artificially cultivated Amorphophallus has gradually become more and more, so that Amorphophallus is no longer a rare plant. In botanical gardens around the world, there are probably more than five pieces a year, and there are reports about the flowering of Amorphophallus.

A giant-flowered konjac planted by the Botanical Garden in Bonn, Germany, became the highest-flowered cultivated plant in the world with a flower height of 2.74 meters in 2003, which is recorded in the Guinness Book of World Records. On October 20, 2005, the Wilhelma Zoological and Botanical Garden in Stuttgart, Germany, planted a giant konjac with 2.91m high flowers, breaking the previous record set by the Bonn Botanical Garden.

New research findings

Corpse flowers found in the Sumatran rainforest during a scientific expedition in 1818 originated from an ancient botanical family characterized by small flowers, according to a team of researchers writing in the journal Science on January 11, 2007. In fact, the flowers of many of its relatives are only a few millimeters wide.

Corpse flower has many strange characteristics, and scientists have been trying to figure out what plant family it belongs to for a long time. Corpse flower is a parasitic plant that steals nutrients from other plants and confuses insects to pollinate them.

Harvard University botanist Charles Davis, who led the study, said the origin of Euphorbiaceae plants in the Euphorbiaceae family should be traced back to the Cretaceous, the last years of dinosaur life. Flowering plants are thought to have begun to appear at that time. The researchers concluded that after about 46 million years of evolution, the size of the corpse flower has increased 79 times, and the rate of evolution has slowed down today.

Main value

Ornamental value of horticultural cultivation.